The use of balers for baling agricultural crops into “round” bales (referring to a generally cylindrically shaped bale having a generally round cross-section) has become increasingly common in recent years, replacing the old system of baling square bales that were secured by different types of twine or metal wire. The first round-balers also used various types of twines to secure the bale, however, over the years different types of netting have been used. The use of netting, and in particular, knitted Raschel netting, has become more and more common. Raschel netting is a knitted netting that typically is made from polymeric material and includes a plurality of equally spaced longitudinal ribbons known as “franzes” and a plurality of intervening zigzag ribbons known as “schusses.” However, the netting used, including Raschel knitted netting, is primarily open, with the franzes and schusses only making up a small percentage of the surface area of the bale and does not protect the bales from rain.
Plastic film wrap, including “sticky film” wrap has been used to wrap whole bales or portions of bales, with the goal of protecting a bale from rain.
However, the use of impermeable plastic film wrap does not allow moisture already within a baled crop to escape there from, since it is bound by an impermeable plastic layer. Since the inherent moisture level in baled crops may be on the order of one or more dozen percent of weight of the crop (for example, in baled hay), this bound-in humidity easily promotes spoilage of the baled crop.
Moreover, when such plastic film has been used in existing netting systems, typically only a portion of the bale was covered, leaving part of the circumference unwrapped and exposed to rain and/or to moisture from the ground on which the bale is resting. If the entire bale was wrapped with plastic film, then internal moisture could not escape. Likewise, any excess moisture gained by the crop from exposure to weather also promoted spoilage of the baled crop. Since bales are often left in a field, exposed to weather for a year or more, cumulative rain and/or ground moisture penetration may be significant, as may be the resultant crop spoilage.
Another disadvantage of using plastic film as a bale wrap has been that the film does not, itself, grasp onto a bale or underlying film layer, and thus a “sticky” portion had to be incorporated to prevent unraveling of the bale. However, use of such sticky film, even if only a small amount, was difficult to feed into a baler. Reasons for this include that, in the process of loading the film and wrapping a bale, the sticky film stuck to elements of the machine as well, making use of these materials difficult. In order to solve the problem of sticky film sticking to a baling apparatus itself, significant alterations to the baling apparatus had to have been made, often proving not to be cost-effective. The use of VELCRO, or VELCRO-type fasteners for wrapping and closing containers are known, as shown by U.S. Pat. No. 5,732,531 to de Silva et al., EP 0 608 871 A2 to de Silva, and Published UK Patent Application GB 2 221 841 A to Pentith.
Other known wrapping and closing containers, fasteners, and/or balers are also shown by the following (1) U.S. Pat. Nos.: 1,331,367, 1,557,881; 1,452,100; 2,539,725; 3,056,245; 3,120,727; 3,138,841; 3,623,485; 3,654,049; 3,733,769; 3,797,650; 3,816,6700; 4,157,754; 4,318,264; 4,333,602; 4,505,424; 4,556,167; 4,679,851; 4,628,709; 4,703,605; 4,753,182; 4,775,310; 4,901,855; 5,012,631; 5,111,931; 5,152,125; 5,457,855; 6,443,187; 5,732,531; 6,453,805; and 6,425,322., (2) U.S. Patent Application Publication: 2004/0121108, and (3) foreign patent documents: FR 398 606; DE 35 25 294 A1; EP 0 233 471 A1; EP 0 324 577 A1; GB 2 221 841; WO 90/08708; CA 739.282; EP 1 369 516 A1 DE 198 33 554 A1; GB 2 348 633 A; and EP 1 321 028 A1.